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Weekly Newspaper and Travel Guide
for Pecos Country of West Texas
Friday, August 13, 2004
Eagles go 1-3 in season opening matches
By JON FULBRIGHT
Staff Writer
The opening week of the 2004 volleyball season was a learning one for the Pecos Eagles. And while a between match session with the video recorder didn’t change the final results in Pecos’ final match on Friday against Odessa High, coach Becky Granado did think her team improved on their results from earlier in the day against the Alpine Bucks.
Pecos won the first game of their home-opening match against Alpine, but then went downhill after that, falling to the Bucks by 15-25, 25-19, 25-11, 25-13 scores. Pecos was then swept by OHS, 25-18, 25-14, 25-19, which dropped the Eagles to 1-3 through the first two days of the season.
On Thursday in Wink, the Eagles opened their season by losing to the host Wildcats, 25-16, 23-25, 25-20, 26-24, then edged the Fort Davis Maidens in five games 24-26, 25-22, 25-13, 23-25, 15-8.
Odessa High had doubled Pecos’ score six days earlier in scrimmage play at Monahans, and the Eagles had problems containing the Bronchos’ bigger front line. But Granado said, “We played much better against them than we played against Alpine. We played a good first game there, but then we just slacked off.
“We looked like six different teams out there. We weren’t talking to each other,” she said. “Against Odessa High I thought we did a much better job talking to each other, and we did better on defense.
“After the Alpine game I talked to them some and showed them the video. I wanted them to see how they looked,” Granado said. “I told them I wanted them to see what I see out there, so they’ll understand why I get upset when I see them just standing around.”
Against Alpine, the Eagles got some kills from Danielle Garcia and Brittany Rodriguez in the early going, but couldn’t handle the Bucks’ LaToya Samples and Leann Bartlett as the match went on. In the loss to OHS, the Bronchos took advantage of their taller front line at times against Pecos, but they also had success with a couple of their shorter spikers, in Liz Ybarra and Jessica Rodriquez.
OHS’ front line also caused problems for Pecos on offense. “We had problems with their big blockers, but Adriana (Armendariz) and Brittany are still young, and we haven’t had time on work on going around the block.”
Granado said in Thursday’s loss to Wink, “I don’t know if it was just because it was the first game of the season, but we just had a tough time on offense. We couldn’t do much.
“Lilly (Valdez) and Candace (Regleman) had some good hits, and Danielle, Brittany and Adriana got up there and had some good blocks, but we just didn’t do enough out there,” she said. “We just made a lot of mental mistakes on defense. We know where we’re supposed to go, but we just were not getting there.”
Eagles’ starters fare well in scrimmage at Andrews
By JON FULBRIGHT
Staff Writer
Depth and pass defense were two of the problems mentioned by Pecos Eagles’ coach Patrick Willis going into the Eagles’ first pre-season scrimmage this past Saturday against the Andrews Mustangs. Those did turn out to be problems for the Eagles against Andrews during the 80-play scrimmage.
But there were also a number of things for the Eagles that looked good against the Mustangs, even though Pecos came out on the short end of a 3-0 final score.
Both of the first-team units were held scoreless until the next-to-last play of the scrimmage, when quarterback Jaime Emiliano broke a couple of tackles on a 33-yard touchdown run for Andrews. Meanwhile, though the Eagles weren’t able to come up with any big plays on offense against the Mustangs, their running game and their short passing game did a good job against Andrews’ first-team defense, while the second team for Pecos also was able to run the ball, while running into problems containing the Mustangs’ offense in their lone 15-play series.
“The second team got a little excited and we stopped thinking about what we were supposed to be doing,” Eagles’ coach Patrick Willis said. “On the last series on defense we made some mental mistakes here and some mental mistakes there and let them have a big play.
“One offense we were trying to make something big happen, but we couldn’t connect. But it was a good look for us, and we held our own through most of the scrimmage,” he added.
The teams opted not to complete their drives at the end of the initial 15-play series, with both Pecos and Andrews getting close to the end zone before their play limit ran out. Pecos ended its drive with a 3rd-and-2 on the 19-yard-line, while Andrews ended with a 2nd-and-13 at the 20 after seeing their initial drive end with an out-of-bounds pass in the end zone on 4th-and-4 from the Eagles’ 12-yard-line.
Booker Fobbs carried the ball five times for 25 yards during the opening series, while quarterback Saul Pina was able to dump the ball off to Rashad Terry twice for first down plays. Pina didn’t fare as well later in he scrimmage when Pecos tried to throw further downfield, and ended up 3-for-9 for 28 yards, with one interception on the first play of the closing 10-play series.
“That was just a mental mistake by Saul on that interception. He didn’t have to throw it, and that’s something we have to work on,” Willis said.
Terry would have a 27-yard run on an inside handoff on the final series, and overall the Eagles ended up running for 117 yards on 27 attempts. Sophomore Luis Ortega carried the ball most of the time during the second 15-play series, and like Fobbs, had a number of mid-range runs, though he was unable to break off a big gain.
“We’ve got a good 1-2 punch with our backs. Booker’s a straight line run, and Cowboy (Ortega) just is able to see those holes and get through them,” Willis said.
Emiliano connected on a 40-yard pass on the second offensive play for Andrews, when the Eagles missed an interception attempt, and overall, the first team defense allowed the Mustangs 121 yards passing on 5-for-9 attempts. Against the second team, Andrews was 4-for-6 for 72 yards, including one 45-yard completion to set up a score and another 16 yarder for a touchdown later in the series.
On the ground, Andrews gained 179 yards on 25 carries, but the first team defense allowed just 41 yards rushing on 14 attempts until Emiliano broke off his 33 yard scoring run at the end.
“Defensively I think our front line is going to be pretty good. Our secondary is still young and we still have to work on some problems we’ll have to work on after we look at the tape,” Willis said.
The meeting was the first for the teams in football on the varsity level since they were both part of District 4-4A back in 1997. Andrews also shut out Pecos’ junior varsity squad, by a 2-0 score with a pair of touchdowns early in the scrimmage, while the Mustangs also scored twice early against Pecos’ freshman in their scrimmage victory.
Pecos Enterprise
York M. "Smokey" Briggs, Publisher
324 S. Cedar St., Pecos, TX 79772
Phone 432-445-5475, FAX 432-445-4321
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Copyright 2003-04 by Pecos Enterprise
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